General Analytics - Consulting for successful Business Intelligence applications

With more than fifteen years' experience building business intelligence applications, General Analytics blends in-depth knowledge of OLAP and other BI technologies with a broad understanding of the organizational factors that must be considered to make these applications a long term success. We work with your team to clarify your organization's business issues and the information needs that address them.

Less art, more science

We use the two most powerful OLAP technologies: Microsoft Analysis Services and Hyperion Essbase. We have developed unique implementation methodologies that take the mystery out of OLAP applications, and we put a high priority on transferring our know-how to you so you are empowered to maintain and enhance your applications after we are gone.

BI or OLAP applications are different. These projects come with their own technical issues:

Scalability considerations are very different from those of relational databases
Security can require more detailed planning
Performance issues are critical to success and eminently solvable

Optimization and tuning of Essbase applications: a General Analytics specialty

General Analytics staff members developed the systematic approach to optimization that is used in Hyperion's own technical training program. We have improved performance by well over 90% in many of our clients' applications and we can nearly always achieve substantial reductions in an Essbase application's system resource requirements.

Getting the right people on board

BI applications also have their own organizational issues. They require more intense involvement from a wider range of people than standard relational projects do. The team needs to include technical specialists, operational staff, and financial analysts, as well as upper management. All team members need to understand the scope and priority of their contributions. In a world where everyone who matters is always over-committed, we can help you identify the players you need for a specific application and help you obtain their active participation and support, to minimize potential bumps in the road.

A vendor-independent consultant that works for YOU

General Analytics accepts no sales commissions from any software vendor, period. The practice of accepting commissions on software recommendations is surprisingly widespread. When you talk to a consulting firm that displays a nice vendor partner status logo, ask them what their commission is on their software recommendations. It doesn't mean they are bad people, but whose interests does this arrangement serve? We think your organization is better off working with a consulting organization that's driven to look out for your interests, not the software vendor's. So we never accept commissions on our recommendations.

Partial client list

These are just a few of the leading organizations we work with:

Campbell-Ewald
JD Power & Associates
Metaldyne
Papa John's International
Pulte Homes
Spectrum Health